#world 02547 meta

[dawn-of-worlds]

turn 3 meta conversations

As usual, you can reblog or reply to this thread to chat about stuff.

A few new faces this turn! I passed out a few invites but there might still be a person or two not listed. If you're playing but you aren't a blog member so and would like to be, sound off here for an invite. (That said, it's fine not to be a member and to post everything on your own blog; it's just that if you aren't able to reblog it here yourself you'll have to flag someone else down to do so.)

[dysrope]

An Invitation

[Round 5: (4+3)+(2+6)=15, Event: 15-10=5]

In the latter days of the first age, Erland sent a swarm of messenger birds from Baled to all corners of the world.

One flew to the southeast, through the prevailing winds, to find the master of names.

One flew southwest to the nave of the world, to the home of life, seeking the forge godess.

One flew into the sky, calling to the moon and sun.

One flew out of the world, to visit the corpse of the last one.

One flew far west, to the strange lands, looking for a stranger.

One flew northwest, following the trail of a rootless wanderer.

One flew north and sideways, to enter the great pale plains.

One last message was given in person, in the twilit caverns of the underworld.

The message was as follows:

Erland cordially invites all major divinities to his realm for a

Conference of Creator Gods,

to discuss and decide on three great questions of this age:

First: The Name and Shape of the World

Second: The Fate of Mortals

Third: The Laws of Gods

With hope and confidence that the combined faculties of all the great dieties shall be able to resolve these issues, Erland eagerly looks forward to welcome them into his home.

RSVP

[ All participants will get an additional 2 power in the next round]

[tanadrin]

A short timeline of the dawn of worlds game so far

To catch myself up, I put together as best I could a timeline of the Dawn of Worlds game so far, with a list of races, avatars, and orders at the end. Fellow-players, if you see this, please correct me if I got anything wrong, or help me fill in any missing details if you can.

Turn 1

The dead skin of the former world gives rise to Naakrsh, the Forgotten Scales.

Zaaz-Ghvash, an orphan from another plane, arrives.

Velarië is born from starlight on the waves. She creates the Isle of Velarië as her home.

Laneth… exists, a chalk mountain in the midst of an otherworldly plain called the Process of Dying.

Haebarik the Rootless awakens. He creates the continent called Haebrach, and a chain of islands betwen Haebrach and Velarie’s isle.

Turn 2

Fiery Erland is born from primordial embers deep beneath the world. He makes a series of volcanic islands.

Naakrsh cuts the Abyss into the Isle of Velarie and the sea around it.

Dark, secretive Omeara wakes; she shapes an extensive underground labyrinth, populated with cavern-dwelling flora and fauna.

Velarie does her best to mend Naakrsh’s violence; she creates the land of Incarien to the northwest.

Haebarik creates Baled, the Home of Monsters, and spreads some of Naakrsh’s abyssal life to it.

Laneth makes a lifeless realm of ice in the north.

Naakrsh creates a spark of his own essence that may engender something later.

Turn 3

Omeara creates a second underground layer beneath the first.

Erland works to rectify some of the underground flooding caused by the creation of the Abyss; he scatters volcanic vents and channels across Baled; he creates living creatures out of stone, and uses some of them to scattered seeds to the four corners of the world to encourage life to take root elsewhere.

Zaag-Ghvash creates two locations of eldritch power with alien glyphs at their center, and an unusual continent in the southwest.

Velarie creates the Ataila, whose first home outside her isle is Tehwatzin aka Etevassin.

Haebarik delves into the Abyss, and returns with the first human beings, snakelike humanoids born of Naakrsh’s spark.

Corobel, the personification of the sky, creates the Mirrorvaults beneath the oceans of the Moon.

Laneth creates the barren south polar region.

Tepponilamek names itself out of the cold wind of the north. It creates twin landmasses east of Baled.

Omeara creates the land of Morne, northeast of Incarien.

Turn 4

Corobel fills the Moon with life.

Omeara creates the avatar Ohm, The First of Worms, the Finger Pale, the Beast of Morne.

Laneth creates Kuollut Kulma, the Wandering Isle, beyond the reach of all the gods, even Laneth itself.

Naakrsh creats the Ebon Priesthood of the Flayed Skin, an order which attracts both human and atai members.

Erland creats the Potter’s Guild, the Keepers of the Secrets of Fire and Earth, to teach the humans the arts of civilization.

Velarie fills southeast Incarien with thick jungles to protect Tehwatzin/Etevassin, and to the south creates the land called Tuula.

(IS) Saarimuuta, one of the seven maidens appointed by Velarie to watch over the waters of Tuula,  hoards the waters of Saarima, in southern Tuula, for herself.

Haebarik spreads more life along the coast of Incarien, and creates the land of Laerel adjoining Laneth.

Corobel raises a continent to the west of Incarien and Tuula.

(IS) Mohäimä escapes Laneth’s domain and takes up residence in Saarima.

Tepponilamek creates a new landmass southwest of the two it made earlier, and surrounds it with helpful prevailing winds.

Omeara uses shape climate to make a temperate coastal region around Morne and Incarien; creates a more boreal area in the north of both, and fills the region in between with thick coniferous forests. Ohm is busy eating things out of existence.

Turn 5

Erland floods the barren interior of Incarien in the northwest using magma; after being washed with water, an enormous lake whose bed is glass and basalt forms.

(IS) Rav, the glancing light, takes up residence in Saarima.

Erland calls a conference of the gods.

Zaag-Ghvash creates an Eldritch Orrery on her island from which horrible secrets can be divined from the stars. She fills the region with a huge wealth of natural resources, both organic and mineral, before setting off for the divine conference.

Naakrsh bleeds a lake of blood on the moon.

Haebarik makes a bridge to the Moon that opens during a total eclipse, providing a way for mortals to travel back and forth.

Corobel fills the sky with 29 planets and moons to track the cycles of time.

Turn 6

Corobel reshapes the flooded portion of Incarien into the Glass Steppes

(IS) Rav creates a magical oasis in Saarima.

Omeara crates the Sea of Spires, a dense fogbound archipelago between Haebrach, Lekesh, and Rasira.

Naakrsh creates the Hatestar, doom of the world.

Laneth creates the Order of the Last Hearth, which teaches that mortals must prepare themselves well for death. Under its influence the human towns in eastern Incarien become preeminent in the funerary arts.

Corobel uses Shape Climate on the Occident (the land west of Incarien and Tuula).

Tepponilamek creates the Windwhisperers, introducing writing to humans and weather-magic to the world.

The First Age ends with the conference of the gods, at which diverse topics are discussed.

Turn 7

Something very disturbing involving a tree on the Moon happens at Corobel’s instigation?

Tepponilamek creates the Messonir and Eppethikuja, mantalike wind-dragons that can control the weather and the sea.

Haebarik creates the Tarbra on Haebrach, five-limbed beings who live via herding.

The Ebon Priesthood construct shafts all over the world, and on the moon, to aid in the potential passage of the Hatestar.

(IS) Saarimuuta gifts a snowflake to Mohäimä, Rav, and Rav’s oasis, and buries another in a secret place.

Erland invites some of the Ataila underground; under his tutelage, these become the chthonic Kautaila. He also creates the Tiktik, who build the city of Chivik.

Haebarik creates an avatar, Maretik, the Void Whale. Maretik abducts a bunch of humans and a few ataila, and deposits them on Lekesh, founding a new civilization there.

Erland makes the Queen of Chivik immortal, at the price of turning her to stone. A group of dissident Tiktik found the city of Neskot.

Corobel uses command avatar on the Great Flowering Tree to create the Sun-Divers. They build the city Azimuth around the tree; beneath the city in the Omphalos, an entrance dug into the underworld.

Laneth creates the Den-Seekers among the Tiktik.

Turn 8? (not sure exactly where turn 8 began)

Tepponilamek creates the Qurri, arthropoidal creates of the equatorial isles. The Kukan, a flightless offshoot of the Messonir, settle in the mountains of Tuula.

Laneth inspires humans to build Aesinhauta in eastern Incarien.

The Azure Reach becomes home to the world’s foremost sailors and navigators. Humans expand eastward, establishing the city of Palk.

Erland creates the Págar, shell-bearing crustaceans, on Morne. The Tiktik of Chivik build the city of Vennesnes.

Omeara extends the underworld to underneath Azimuth, and fills this new region with appropriately-adapted flora and fauna.

The Order of the Last Hearth creates the city of Vorond; this becomes home to the Hewn, or Memnarks, a human subrace.

Laneth creates a new land in the north of the world.

The Messonir found a city (name?) that develops advanced magical smithing techniques.

Explorers from Azimuth venture to the Moon, where they are transformed into a new race, the vampiric, amphibious Calyptra that live in the lake of blood.

Corobel creates an avatar in the form of the False-Lights that emanate from the Sun; he commands the avatar to create the race called the Aphotics; he also commands the Great Flowering Tree, unleashing a golden age among the Sun-Divers.

The worm Ohm comes to Tehwatzin/Etevassin, and seizes it, intending to hold it hostage. Rather than let the worm eat his fill, and totally erase the legacy of the Ataila who labored there, Velarie destroys the city by calling down a burning star from the heavens (Turn 9); from the fallen star the avatar Ängiläimö is created (Turn 10).

Turn 9? (not sure where turn 9 began either)

Tepponilamek creates the algaekin.

Omeara creates an order called the Wardens of the Earthen Oath, dedicated to protection, community, and agriculture, who have a kind of magic called Oathbinding.

Corobel creates an avatar, Coryphaeus, the Beast of Faces; Coryphaeus in turn creates the Night-Singers, amphibioid marshdwellers prone to unusual mutations. Occidentals (?) colonize the northeastern coast of the Occident, and grow preeminent in divination and prophecy.

Págar society on Morne develops the Seven Schools.

(?) creates an order (name?) among the Tarbra (?). The Tiktik of Chivik build a city (name? location?).

Tepponilamek creates the Titans.

Omeara uses command avatar to have Ohm create the deplorable Ohmlings.

Haebarik creates the order of Those Who Walk Beside God among the Titans.

Turn 10 (so far)

Laneth teaches First-Bell the Arts of Release, which involves knowledge of poisons, magic of semiotic dissolution, and euthanasia.

Omeara creates an avatar, The Omens, and uses this collection of dreams and visions to direct Hulat of the Hewn to found the city of Tondor.

(IS) A tribe of Ataila called the Ruohaina come to Saarima, fleeing the ruin of Tehwatzin/Etevassin. Mohäimä prophesies they will one day build a great city, Tehwatzin’s equal.

Major gods and their avatars:

Naakrsh

Zaaz-Ghvash

Velarie: Ängiläimö

Erland

Haebarik: Maretik

Laneth

Tepponilamek

Omeara: Ohm, The Omens

Corobel: Great Flowering Tree, False-Lights, Coryphaeus

Orders and their founders

Ebon Priesthood of the Flayed Skin (Naakrsh)

Potter's Guild (Erland)

Order of the Last Hearth (Laneth)

Windwhispherers (Tepponilamek)

Wardens of the Earthen Oath (Omeara)

Uncertain Tarbra order (Erland)

Those Who Walk Beside God (Haebarik)

Den Seekers (Laneth)

Races and their creators (or avatar’s creator, if created via avatar)

Ataila (Vel.)

Humans (Hae.)

Messonir (Tep.)

Eppethikuja (Tep.)

Tarbra (Hae.)

Kautaila (Erl.)

Tiktik (Erl.)

Sundivers (Cor.)

Qurri (Tep.)

Kukan (Tep.)

Págar (Erl.)

Memnarks/Hewn (Ome.)

Calyptra (Hae.)

Aphotics (Cor.)

Algaekin (Tep.)

Night-Singers (Cor.)

Titans (Tep.)

Ohmlings (Ome.)

[dawn-of-worlds]

turn 2 meta conversations

I guess we should have done this yesterday actually. anyway hold forth

[dawn-of-worlds]

turn 4 meta conversations

As usual, feel free to put whatever comments you like here.

By the way, the "default" play mode is to spend five turns on each age, and that seems reasonable here, since the world is filling out and I think everyone's had a chance to do some land stuff. Unless people object, that would make the next turn (running March 11th to March 17th) the last in the first age. If anyone would prefer to carry on a little longer (e.g. to give the new arrivals more time), we can discuss it here.

[dawn-of-worlds]

Turn 9/10 meta

Alright, so the big question this time around is whether to extend the second age some number of turns, go straight to the third age, or change up the rules to get some transitional middle period for example.

Other questions which I think are interesting are how to model conflict, and how to measure time, but those are less important.

Also, most meta discussions lately have been on discord, so feel free to check that out if youre interested:

[dawn-of-worlds]

In time, Baled was complete. Its life teemed in sulfurous pools, on muddy beaches, and up on rocky cliffs. Herds of peaceful but poisonous beasts roamed muddy plains, ever alert for predators. The land fed the sea, the sea fed the land, and the gulls above fed on both. A sustainable balance, something that could be trusted to improve itself from here.

And so Haebarik left the island. Much of what follows is unclear, for the god himself will not speak of what transpired, and all we have are the half-remembered tales of birds, who cannot see beneath the waves.

The god moved southwest: was his destination Incarien? The Isle? Did gulls tell him of even newer lands? When he made no move to avoid the abyss, was that negligence or design? And when, while traveling over its deepest point, he stopped and sank, was he merely tired? Was it intent? Or did another force, a greater force, coil itself about him, and drag him into the depths?

The abyss is a cursed place, and even the clearest water turns dark with depth. Many years passed, yet none had the slightest inkling of what had happened to the god.

All we know: all there is to know, is that when Haebarik escaped the depths at last, when he crawled onto the shores of Incarien and wept with relief, he was cradling two small bodies in his arm.

(Haebarik 5, 2 for nonhoarding, 2d6 -> 9, 5+2+9=16)

Expending 14 power and choosing to make use of Naakrsh' seed of 8 to create the race of humans, whose first village-sized settlements will be located on the eastern peninsula of Incarien, near the mouth of a twisting river that they call Nak.

Everyone knows what humans are, right? Tall and slender bipeds, their bodies smooth except for the red or auburn hair on their head, their footfalls soft. They are without exception left-handed, and their visual language reflects this just as ours reflects predominant right-handedness. Their eyes have vertical pupils and lack eyelids: thus they cannot blink. Human eyes see well in the dark, and their circadian rhythm is only mildly linked to ambient light, so it's reasonably common for human communities to live nocturnally, especially if many of them hunt.

Humans, when sleeping, constrict their pupils instead of closing their eyes, and thus appear awake at a glance. The illusion is strengthened by their propensity to sleepwalk and talk in their sleep, for they dream often and vividly, remembering a world that came before this one.

Humans are what Haebarik calls 'ambitious' and 'enterprising', what others might call 'uneasy' and 'restive', and what humans themselves call 'deprived'. Rare is the human who feels contentment, and so they inevitably dive headfirst into some or another project, vainly hoping that their struggles will bring them satisfaction. This may manifest as greed, a drive to explore or experiment, or as a quiet hatred of this barren, incomplete world, and the gods that brought them into it.

Human culture, at this stage, consists of small family groups that band together into small villages for protection. Humans quickly figured out fire, agriculture (so far chiefly focused on sweet potatoes and sorghum) as well as basic stone tools, allowing them to subsist comfortably and rapidly expand.

Much of the trees near their villages are swiftly harvested as construction material and firewood, and a few visionary humans are exploring pottery, fishing, and animal husbandry (the latter made difficult by the relative lack of large animals on Incarien).

The religious views of humans are unfocused. Haebarik left them with little in way of moral instruction, and most humans piece together a highly personal religion from their dreams. A common belief is that humans originate from a distant, perfect realm, and must strive to return to it; such worldviews often cast Haebarik as a sort of demiurge figure, who dragged humanity down to this flawed world so he might consider himself their lord.

(Here we go: humans! I have no special plans for them; presumably they'll gradually spread down the coast and river and get influenced by different gods as they do so. Assume a rough pre-metalworking tech level for now, but the branch heading up the river might figure out mining soon. Also hope the backstory of Haebarik actually creating them isn't too vague, if necessary me 'n @oligetcetera can hash the events out in a bit more detail)

Lastly, Haebarik is now at 2 power.

[tanadrin]

I think I’m actually going to have to drop out of the Dawn of Worlds game; it’s been really fun and the results have been very cool, and I keep meaning to come back to it, but I simply don’t have the energy or attention for it at the moment.

[dawn-of-worlds]

Turn 5 meta conversations

As usual, people can use this thread to discuss stuff. Note that (since no one seemed to much object) the first age ends after the current turn; on the next turn, we switch to the second column of the cost table.

[tanadrin]

Personally I don’t think it’s possible to have too many ppl in this Dawn of Worlds game; the more different aesthetics there are the more interesting the result will be.

[dawn-of-worlds]

Thrones Invisible and Tones Unmissable

In which cities are founded:

Serroiovanna of the invisible throne, a center of trade in the glass steppes, probably governed by contemplative philosopher-oligarch False-Fires, though no mortal has ever seen them.

Meridian, in the Occident, ruled by seemingly arbitrary oracular taboos apparently intended to prevent various unspecified future catastrophes.

Ilhu, rich in hymns and mercenaries, a Sun-Diver colony in Tuula.

And a strange hospital is built by the moon-priests in Dheia of the Cypresses.

Corobel starts turn 15 with 10 points: 4 (roll) + 3 (nonhoarding) + 3 (left over)

Command Avatar to Found City (-1): Certain False-Fires, who, according to the typical disposition of their kind, are neither wholly opposed to nor wholly aligned with the purposes of the Sky, form a small contemplative community on a lakeside kopje in the Glass Steppes; the site, advantageous to both trade and farming, accumulates first a rime of human farms and huts, then of villages, temples, plazas, verandas, bridges, markets. The Fires, evidently fancying themselves enlightened philosopher-kings, cloister themselves on their acropolis and hand down tracts and decrees through the eunuch hierodules who form their priesthood. At least, so the story goes. Whoever the rulers are, they live in absolute secrecy, visible only through their commands and the occasional miracle. This is Serroiovanna, of the Invisible Throne. It is famed for its orchards, vineyards, cavalry, vice, ruthless law enforcement, and absolute centrality to regional trade. The nomads of the steppes have tried many times to take it, but all conquests founder before its walls of many-colored, intricately patterned stone.

Very occasionally, some particularly fortunate or fascinating visitor is summoned to an audience in the Hall of Brass (or is it bronze?), a sort of antechamber, where unearthly voices and an uncanny glow reverberate from mirror-polished walls.

Command Avatar to Found City (-1): The designs of the Oracles command the founding of Meridian, from which the world shall be measured. The city, located in the coastal south-east of the Occident, is governed by a million shifting taboos, shifting and combining in regular and irregular patterns, handed down according to the prognostications of the Sybil. On one day, no free citizen may wear blue in public; on the next, faces must be covered below the eyes, or no ox must pass through the market square; draughts is banned on every seventh evening, and kittens born on the new moon must unfailingly be drowned. Each ruling is supposed to prevent, through obscure mechanisms, some far-off catastrophe. Soon, the Sybils have become quite autonomous from the rest of their order, appointing their own successors and only infrequently sending representatives to Azimuth. The cause of this tension remains opaque to outsiders, and, thus, to history.

Command Avatar to Command City (-1): Dheia of the Cypresses, beloved of the moon, builds a great refuge for the sick, the orphaned, and the deformed. Like many temples of the Sky, it is arranged as a series of concentric sanctums; unlike most, it is also segmented like a citrus-fruit. In one section, two-headed animals are cared for; in the next, the insane; in the next, a dozen albino crocodiles. The contents of certain rooms are known only to the attendants. The centre holds a pale zaïmph cut from the original prophetic veil; a meagre scrap when the city began, it has grown as large as a bed-sheet under the nourishing influence of moonlight.

Command Avatar to Found City (-1): The Sun-Diver colony of Ilhu, rich in hymns, grows to prominence in Tuula. It is influenced by the Two Stars: the priests sing ritual chants from the temple-spires at dawn and dusk, sacred roosters greet the day, and its mercenaries (armed and ordered in the Occidental style) find ample employment in the wars of Gavu and Dzadek. [Further details on the Tuula colonies may be hashed out later, since Mynodon is planning a post on the continent’s peoples.]

6 points remain.

[An action covering the fate of the Tiktik will arrive before the end of the turn.]

[dawn-of-worlds]

Sublunary

This action also takes place on Turn 12. Corobel has 2 points remaining.

Command Avatar to Create Race (-1): The Two Stars create the Eight-Eyed, a subrace of arachnid-cicada Tiktik, to guard the tunnels of the Moon. The souls of the Refusers (those who refused Haeberik’s gift of vampirism and were secreted away in the heart of the moon) are alloyed with those of Tiktik and sharpened on the whetstones of those sharpest demigods, the Two Stars. They haunt the lava-tubes and chambered caverns, dwelling in honeycombs carved of pale basalt and gleaming in the ghostly light of moonstones.

Command Avatar to Found City (-1): Coryphaeus draws lunar settlers along the coast to the ancient crater-lagoon whose centre is the Court of the Two Skies. Here, they find great vaults on a superhuman scale, riddled with neatly-curving caverns, fluted and ribbed with gentle veins of silvery rock. Spires and pinnacles tower above. Through these, the lunar winds and the voices of the Coryphaeus sing the Moon’s part in the Music of the Spheres. They build the city of Periapt.

0 points remain.

There follow some facts about the Moon.

The greatest vault is the Court, which is chambered like a heart; it contains the Firefly Embassy, where emissaries of the stars keep their strange council with the Faces of the Moon. In the Chamber of Visions, arsenal of the Sky, the celestial portents clamor silently: comets await their appointed times; meteorites, kin of the Great Serpent, crouch, eager to blaze and die.

The stone is slightly living, for it is the flesh of a god. (This is true everywhere on the moon, but especially here.) Like all living things, it feels a gentle tendency towards light, which draws it upward, spinning it into pearlescent spires and beehive kopjes. And the moon (everywhere, but especially here) seems to generate a kind of small stone, somewhat like a pearl; the colonists say that, whenever someone takes a secret with them to the grave, it lodges within the moon, and these are the pearls that grow around them, wept out like tears.

The gravity of the moon is just low enough that it’s a noticeable change from World standard. The Secret within weights heavy on the heart of the world and draws things to it as a tragedy is drawn to its conclusion.

The Conquest and its bloody culmination struck every plant on the watching moon white with grief and fear. (This only applies to parts of plants which are normally green, and some are still transparent, red, luminous blue, or various other exotic shades; this is because the Moon “has a sense of aesthetics, you know, it’s important to introduce some contrasts here and there. Plus, I like cornflowers.”)

[dawn-of-worlds]

The Era of Many Foundings

Tepponilamek resides in the Yonder, but their influence is still felt in the Lands Below: Tepponilamek has 0 + 3 + (2d6 => 4 + 1 = 5) – 1 + 1 = 9 power. They spend this power on three efforts of Create City, as the Messonir and Dzadek found many new realms in the beginning of the Third Age.

These cities are Kalikassis, in southern Lekesh, a great trading port; Thorfuintir, in Lanai, a walled bastion in the centre of a sprawling land of small townships, and Gazhiruda in Uukulo, the capital of the small Durran kingdom and a city of oaths and hope.

The Messonir, reeling from the weakening of the Ajuna and their encounters with the humans of Lekesh, spread outwards. Great irrigation works are established in the valley of the Ajuna, but many Messonir still depart. Soon the cities along the river are no longer hard pressed to reach each harvest, and some of their former properity returns. Messonir society remains much the same, but is now more organised and regimented, though not noticeably more hierarchical. These changes only affect the settlements along the Ajuna river valley; those in the delta, or further afield, change little, and this soon becomes a hard division in the Messonir civilisation.

Many of the Messonir, fleeing either the weakening of the Ajuna or the new more ordered Messonir societies, travel to southern Lekesh. There, in an effort spearheaded by the Children of Kalikan, they found a new city; Kalikassis.

Elsewhere, on the continent of Tuula, the Low Kukan – or the Gavu, as the Dzadek disparagingly call them, or the Usfir, as they have started to call themselves – have spent the centuries steadily growing in numbers. Their time in the thick forests of Lanai was initially hard, as they were few in number, spread out, and in a land unfamiliar to them. But they have adapted and thrived. Villages have grown into towns, and new villages founded, the population expanding westwards away from the mountains where the Dzadek dwell.

At the place where two great rivers meet, the ruling families of five important towns gather, and agree to unify, to provide their people with a bastion of strength in the face of increasing raids from the east. The city they found is named Thorfuintir.

Thorfuintir has existed for barely half a century when its first challenge arises; a vast raid by the Dzadek, who burn many villages. Each of the five founding families sends warriors to fight off the invaders; amongst them, Ymnar of the Huntun and Hraseta of the Sretten distinguish themselves, and the invaders break and flee with what loot they can carry before they get close to the city.

One large band of raiders is led by a Dzadek warrior named Gazhuri, who is known for ferocity in battle but melancholy outside of it, and often despairs at the violence that was unceasing in the high mountains where the Dzadek dwelt. This band are separated from their fellows and flee west, deeper into the lands of the Gavu. They come close enough to see the tall walls of Thorfuintir, and upon seeing them Gazhuri falls to his knees and weeps. For he knows in his heart the price of his people’s warring; that they will never build anything great.

Turning to his fellows, he asks them whether they wish to return to their homes, and be the same as their ancestors, locked in senseless bloodshed. Or if they will follow him on a better path. Not one desires to return home.

Travelling in a great arc, Gazhuri’s forces gather up other stragglers from the Dzadek, and to each Gazhuri offers the same choice. Many agree to follow him. He leads them well, and refuses to let any of his forces raid the Kukan where they went. Eventually the band journies west, beyond Thorfuintir; for Gazhuri saw the two rivers flowing near Thorfuintir, and iss sure high mountains lie to the west.

Gazhari is correct; after many months the great band of warriors reach the mountains. Ascending them, they fing a pure and clear lake, around which are villages where small bands of Titans dwell. These Titans revere the great spirit of the lake, Ullustiru, who has heard of the depredations of the Dzadek upon the lake spirits and mountain spirits to the east.

Many of the warriors are wary of the towering, stony beings, and some mutter of binding the great lake spirit; but Gazhuri silences such mutterings. Instead, he speaks to the elders from amongst each band of Titans, and gains permissions for his people to settle. Then, at a great gathering of his people and the Titans, Ullustiru herself makes an appearance in the form of a water-serpent with a dozen coils.

There, Gazhuri swears an oath before her; that he would reject the ways of his ancestors, and not allow the Dzadek to fall once more into civil strife. To consume the blood of another Dzadek, aside from to pass on their gift of the winds grace at the time of their death, was forbidden. So too was the binding of lakes and mountains without their express permissions.

Gazhuri turns to his folk, and asks tha they swear the same oath. They are slow to speak at first, but soon more and more swear, for in their heart of hearts they  all followed Gazhuri because they wish to leave behind the violence of their history.

When every Dzadek present has sworn, Ullustiru smiles, and swears in her turn that if they drank of her waters, or bathed within her, then the thirst for the blood of their fellows that consumed every Dzadek would abate for a while. She bids them drink; they do so, and know her words to be true. They cry out in joy, dance along the slakeshore, and sing praises to the lake spirit and even to Tepponilamek, their forgotten creator.

On that spot on the lakeshore, Gazhuri lays the first stone of a city, which is named Gazhiruda in his honor. There his folk, who name themselves the Durra, meaning the Sworn Ones, make their homes.

[dawn-of-worlds]

PSA: there are polls live at the moment concerning the number of turns (if any) we should add before Age 3 (here) and which set of point costs should apply during these extra turns (here).

[dawn-of-worlds]

The Hewn: A Field Guide

(this is the sequel to this post)

(this one's long. sorry. consider this optional reading.)

DESCRIPTION: Memnarks, more popularly known as the Hewn, resemble their human cousins but with several major differences. They are universally shorter than humans, perhaps three quarters of their height, but broader and more brawny to compensate. Their skin and hair tones are more muted and appear drained of colour, with the majority tending towards pale muted browns or various shades of grey.

Nearly all Hewn have distinct physical characteristics that seem reminiscent of earth in some fashion -- some have dry cracked skin with deep grooves like parched soil, others have stone-like growths or patterns over their bodies, and others still have skin as smooth as the surface of a polished boulder. Variation is extreme and how they manifest emerge seemingly at random. Besides these features, memnarks are much like humans, sharing their odd, serpentine eyes and endemic discomfort.

The most notable and perhaps defining feature of the memnarks is their genetic memory. However, this memory is an imperfect thing. Only the most talented memnarks are able tap into the majority of their ancestral knowledge and become true Embodied (their term for those who come to truly tap into one or more ancestor's memories). For the first decade or so of a memnark's life their ancestral knowledge remains entombed deep within, only sometimes burbling to the surface in random contextless flashes or in moments of great peril. It isn't until a memnark's mid-late teens that the process of Exhuming memories begins to occur naturally, though without (sometimes extremely intense!) discipline and guidance by teachers, the memories uncovered remain extremely spotty and incomplete. Some, however, refuse the call to Exhume at all.

SOCIETY: It is along this line that memnark society is split. One faction, which call themselves Unburied Hewn, believe it is the duty of all memnarks to pursue Embodiment even if one does not achieve it, and strive to preserve the memories of their ancestors and others in purity and clarity. The other faction, which have adopted the (originally pejorative) name of Blind Hewn, believe that they have no such obligation, for it is their souls that will lie within Laneth someday and refuse to waste it on becoming someone long dead.

For now these two factions live side-by-side, but tensions are rising and a schism seems inevitable. Thankfully, memnark society is slow to change, and so these tensions are at a mere simmer rather than a frothing boil. You are more likely to encounter Unburied Hewn in Vorond, because they cleave to the old ways and are more susceptible to inherited nostalgia, while Blind Hewn, who are eager to seek out new horizons and experiences, are more common in Pai and the settlements around the Nak. However, this is no hard rule; Unburied Hewn frequently make trips to the human settlements to commit the lives of their shorter-lived kin to memory, and the Blind can be found within Vorond stubbornly eeking out lives in a society that expects conformity.

While memnark society is not officially caste-based, it may as well be. There is immense pressure and expectation (even amongst Blind Hewn) that a memnark will assume the profession of their ancestors -- what, after all, is the point of training from scratch when a wealth of experience lays just below the surface simply waiting to be Exhumed? While many more defiant memnarks succumb to social pressure eventually, those particularly strong-willed individuals who decide to pursue their own path often find themselves hindered by others and experience increasing ostracization. These memnarks invariably leave Vorond in the end and move to live amongst the humans, hoping to find kinship with their strange cousins.

Memnark society is run by a council of Embodied Hewn (the number of which ebb and flow over time), headed by whoever is the eldest Hulat at a given time, a position that is both identity and title. Hulat has the final say of who is permitted on the Embodied Council, and given his (and it is always "he," even when the Embodied may have been otherwise) deep wisdom and experience, few question the decision. Even beyond the Council, elders hold sway; amongst memnarks, arranged marriage is common and even expected, with parents seeking favourable unions that will produce either extremely specialized or broadly-skilled grandchildren, depending on intent.

Relations with other species, particularly humans, are often positive if cordial affairs, but the memnarks have a tendency to hold deep and long lasting grudges. Most notably, for many of the memnarks there is still a strong bitterness and trauma related to Aïs, to the point that they refuse to trade or consort with natives of Aesinhaut entirely, with rare exception of priests of the Order. While now a myth to most, the wounds left by Aïs are still fresh in the near-unchanging cultural memory of the memnarks, and if they are to act with hostility it would almost certainly be directed at Aesinhaut.

Overall, memnark society is extremely traditional and slow to change, and can often seem very rigid to outsiders. While there is great pressure to put on the facade of harmony and unity, the memnarks are anything but, though sagacious travellers would do well to ignore such things lest they risk offending their hosts.

RELIGION: Due to Hulat's influence, Laneth (sometimes referred to by the memnarks as the Bleak Mountain) and the Order of the Last Hearth (or at least some odd variation of it) hold the most influence in memnark society, with most memnarks at least observers. Memnarks bury their dead within the mountains, and the Order-blessed catacombs run miles deep. However, other deities hold sway within their society as well.

Hulat's exodus had several Keepers amongst their number, and so a chapter of the Keepers of Secrets of Fire and Earth has been within Vorond since its very inception. The Old Man At the Fire is an extremely important deity to the memnarks and sits just below Laneth in influence. The Vorond chapter is healthier than it's ever been since reconnecting with its sister chapters in the lowlands, and many humans of the Keepers travel to Vorond to learn from the memnarks and their odd techniques.

Beyond them, some smaller faiths can be found in memnark culture, though less influential and without formal structure. Guardsmen and hunters give offerings to a sky deity they call the Azure Glory (Corobel) in exchange for clarity of sight and ability to conceal one's approach, while planters and parents might call upon Mother Night (Velarie) to help seed take root and give children vitality. By far the largest of these lesser cults is that of the Knowing Wind (Tepponilamek), whom the Egregores (those Embodied most devoted to gathering and preserving knowledge) consider their patron. Shepherds, too, whisper prayers of protection to the winds in hope that it might carry their scent away from predators and their voices home when the worst comes to pass. Some memnarks believe it was the Knowing Wind that first lead them to the mountains and speculate it was their creator, and who can fault them? Memory and knowledge are, after all, very similar and intertwined things.

Within Vorond, Haebarik and Omeara have few representatives, but for those Blind Hewn who break from society and seek new horizons the two of them are as sacred as Laneth. To Haebarik they give thanks for the rush of exploration and the gift of freedom, and refer to him as the Boundless Traveller. His most faithful tie ribbons of bright colours to their walking sticks and wagons so that others of their faith might join them and travel together. Omeara, who they call the Black Swallow, offers them the opportunity to be free of the burden of their ancestors and relieves them of Exhumed memories if the proper rites are observed. Some particularly radical followers wear black headbands to signify their faith, and will entirely excise the ancestral memories of themselves (and others, sometimes unwillingly) with secret rituals so that they are free of Exhuming entirely.

And, of course, the memnarks, like their human cousins, sometimes succumb to the abhorrent and seductive dreams of Naakrsh. It seems the Ebon Priesthood of the Flayed Skin has little presence in Vorond (or, at least, a public one); those that listen to his whispers too long find themselves leaving unseen for places unknown.

VOROND: There is little to be said of Vorond. It lies high on the slope of a mountain north of the Nak. In the summer, once the snow has melted and those fattened creeks have turned skinny once more, it blooms with meadows of alpine flowers, and in the winter, when Laneth's presence is felt most closely and the herders hold their tinder even closer, it blankets those precarious ledges and peaks with driven snow.

The heart of Vorond is a large cave. Though nothing compared to the expansive caverns of the underworld, it was big enough to house all their number for many years. It has been a long time since the memnarks outgrew its confines, and have expanded by carving hallways and rooms into the cavern walls, some of which have looped back to balconies and perches that look down on the main chamber from above. Today, the central chamber is home to clusters of small, stone brick homes and spacious public squares, and hosts the grand home of Hulat and other Hulats.

While Omeara abandoned the memnarks soon after their transformation, she is, amongst other things, a god of barriers and separation; doors, walls, fences, the cleaving and cutting of an axe or blade, and even social separation like banishment or imprisonment are sacred to her. So before she left, she taught them the secrets of laying stone upon stone and gave them plans for a great wall to be erected over the mouth of the cave. Made of the finest ashlar and set with a beautiful egress blessed by Omeara herself, the Wall of Vorond is nearly impenetrable and entirely indestructible. It is an asset to those that call Vorond home, and while for now that is the memnarks, it may not always be so.

[dawn-of-worlds]

Timeline of the First Age, pt. 1

Interested in this project but no idea where to start reading? Not a fan of scrolling through tumblr posts in reverse order (and who can blame you?), or just lacking the time to read through everything? Want a quick lookup or link to this-or-that historical event? Then this is the post for you!

Dates are more or less arbitrary but respect the order of events. This timeline intends to cover about the first two out-of-game weeks, or the first thousand years in-game.

Year 0: With the aid of forlorn outsider Zaaz-Ghvash, the old world dies and is reborn as the new, its old skin persisting as the dread god Naakrsh. The new world, for now, is one of drowned land and endless ocean. Some gods, dormant for now, come into existence with it. Others were always there.

Year 50: Starlight and water give birth to Velarië, who rises the Isle of Velarië from the watery depths. Forging starlight into life, she creates the first plants and animals. With life comes its mirror: far away, not quite part of the world yet, lies the land of death, which is and is ruled by Laneth.

Year 250: On the forested isle, a tree rejects its limits, its roots, its home, and in doing so becomes Haebarik, god of travel. Desperate for new lands to explore, Haebarik sacrifices his right arm to create the lifeless realm of Haebrach to the southeast.

Year 300: Roused by the creation of new realms, the volcanic god Erland creates land of his own, which Velarië's creations swiftly inhabit.

Year 400: Naarksh, embittered and furious, drags down a portion of the Isle to the ocean floor, creating a great realm of trenches and abyssal plain. The drowned lands' life persists, taking on new and strange shapes. Above the waves, Velarië sets to repairing the damage.

Year 450: The goddess Omeara, of forgotten and secret things, creates a vast underground realm of tunnels and caves. She populates it with dreams and memories stolen from surface life, creating a vast ecosystem of fungi and fauna seen nowhere else.

Year 500: Velarië has mended her isle's wounds as well as she could, and constructs a far greater realm called Incarien to its northwest, a future home for life.

Year 530: Haebarik, stirred by rumors of new lands, travels west. Fatigue nearly ends his journey, and to rest the god brings vast amounts of basalt and sediment to the water's surface, expanding the Abyss and creating the isle of Baled at its border.

Year 530: Starting from Abyssal stock, Haebarik begins creating suitable life for the newborn island.

Year 530: Abyssal floodwaters ravage the underground tunnels of Omeara, who shapes new caverns to hold them and their strange life.

Year 550: Erland creates vast networks of steam vents and volcanic ducts, shapes rocks into life, and at last sends his creations to carry life across the world. Grasses and trees sprout in formerly barren lands.

Year 700: A vast realm of ice, reflection of Laneth, appears at the world's north boundary.

Year 850: Naarksh pours his power into a single tainted spark, inviting other gods to use it when shaping the first true souls.

Year 950: Zaaz-Ghvash searches all over the world for a thing that can love and be loved. In places, her gaze irrevocably warps the soil. Elsewhere, land rises from the seas, twisting itself into a new continents.